One month flies by faster than usual these days. I’ve been working to ignore the calendar, because I’m waiting for my editing letter… It could arrive any day, and means I’ll be heads-down once more working toward a deadline.

The easiest way for me to ignore the calendar is to read. I just went back to Goodreads… and apparently I read 14 books since my last post, less than a month ago. That seems… excessive, even for me. One of them was by someone I’d beta’d for way back in 2013, and I discovered myself as a named character for the third time. There was a moment of squee.

😀

Since I last posted we also watched Avengers: Endgame (THREE times!). I will happily debate plot points and share spoilers with anyone who asks, though obviously the short answer is that I loved the movie and how it tied up so many arcs established in the 22 movies that have now come out of the MCU. We even spent a weekend bingeing the first three Avengers movies to be better grounded in the stories told to date, and were shocked by how much was foreshadowed in them.

I also read non-book things. Quite a few were from the perspective one might best describe as side views on feminism. Like when Spain gave men equal access to parental leave, and a subsequent study on social attitudes found that all of a sudden they didn’t want quite so many kids. Or the long-form article celebrating Margarete Schuette-Lihotzky, the first woman to qualify as an architect in Austria, who did motion studies to optimize a woman’s kitchen experience in the early 1900s in Germany. The interesting take-away from it, though, is that how we imagine our kitchen experience has everything to do with class and sex, and much less to do with food production than one might imagine. (Interestingly, there was also an article about eating alone being on the rise, something that used to have a social stigma attached for women.) And, of course, the ever-green review of why more and more of us are suffering worse and worse allergies–urban landscapers who decided it’d be best to plant mostly male trees to avoid the “mess” of fertilized droppings.

I also read two articles directly related to science I need to understand for my Planet Seekers series. The first reports that there are contradictory findings about the wildlife in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Some suspect that the mere fact that humans are no longer there means wildlife is thriving. Others wonder what their quality of life is. The second showed a 3D printed Mars habitat.

There are other thoughts playing in my mind about book 2, especially now that I have a completed beat sheet and have started drafting it. If all goes well, I’ll be able to include at least some of chapter 1 of book 2 at the end of book 1 when it comes out. Keep your eyes open for a cover reveal sometime in the not-so-distant future. Once I have that, I’ll kick off my word counter here, but I’m not unhappy to have the first 500+ words on (virtual) paper for it already.

The funny thing about finishing the first draft of a book is that in the immediate aftermath, it kind of feels like you’re on vacation. There are no more deadlines and you’ve finished the work that you can… at least until you get your editing letter and start digging through all the suggestions to make your story the best it can be.

So I’ve been enjoying time with hubs. We got to see “Shazam!”, which was surprisingly excellent. There was so much humor and gentleness around some tough topics (bullying, abandonment, found family) that by the time we walked out of the theater, we were both quoting key lines to each other.

And I’ve been reading. Eight books since my last blog post, according to Goodreads. I’ve gone ahead and increased my goal for the year AGAIN, because it seems I’m finding the time more regularly now that I have a library card and don’t have to worry quite so much about busting our budget on books.

I’ve also been reading about health issues. I discovered the Epworth Sleepiness Scale recently and discovered… I’m actually better slept than I thought. I don’t fall asleep during the day unless I haven’t slept the night before. On the other hand, there was a very disturbing article in The Atlantic about whether dentistry is actually a science. Recalling the dentist we had who worked on our teeth a number of years back, who pushed us toward his solution rather than what we’ve ended up having to work our way toward over time (and after switching through a couple other dentists), it was truly disconcerting to read that it’s only been in the past ten years that the ADA has started up an “evidence-based” arm of the association. Finally, on the mental health front, a long explanation of psychological research on the mental states that lead to suicide.

To balance the weight of that, then, here are eleven Persian sayings that make no sense when translated directly into English.

Aside from all of this, I’ve also been working on the revised print versions of the first two Red Slaves books. I sent my cover artist the details over the weekend, so I should be posting those updates in the next week or so.

In the meantime, my brain has been percolating on story ideas. The other night I tumbled to the perfect opening sentence for book 2 of the Planet Seekers series, so last night I finally opened up a new Word document and started writing. I still need to finish the beat sheet exercise that kept me on track with book 1, but I’m happy with where I’m starting.

And I had an idea grow out of something a friend and I have been kicking around for several years: A follow-on trilogy to Red Slaves, but set in the DC area and involving American dragons–who Anne’s related to, so she and her family might well be making an appearance again.

There are certainly more story ideas than I think I’ll be able to finish in my lifetime, so even though I’m done with the one I was working on, I’m happy to be making another new start.

It’s been an unusual weekend. I finished writing my eleventh book, even meeting the deadline I’d arranged with my editor for its completion. And, as my brother’s wife and daughters are traveling, he and his son asked us if we would binge the director’s cut of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We agreed. We got to enjoy his new big-screen TV and surround sound setup. However, this is not an endeavor for light-hearted agreement: Total number of hours spent watching the three movies (and note we didn’t even touch any of the many extras!) was approximately TWELVE. Let that sink in for a moment.

And then remember that the fanbois dinged this because “THERE WERE TOO MANY WOMEN.” (Compared to the original texts.) I can tell you after having watched this: THERE WERE NOT ENOUGH WOMEN. This was all the glory of battle fighting for a worthy cause. And male bonding. And more battles against evil. And a king who tells his daughter: “The battlefield is no place for a woman. However, I’ve arranged for you to take over as ruler of our people should things go badly.” And when she’s notably disheartened and asks, “What other duty would you have of me?” His answer is, “Duty? No, I would have you smile.”

I almost hit the roof. Another man telling another woman to smile. To ignore all the pain that surrounds her and gratify the world with her sunny self.

So. Yeah. I’m significantly less of a LOTR fan than I thought. I’m aware this is likely to raise the ire of Internet trolls.

On the more sci-fi end of my reading interests, I’ve been hearing more and more speculation recently that automated cars are going to dramatically change the risk ratio, affecting both insurers and purchasing decisions. This Bloomberg article delves into some of the details that are starting to come into focus with that issue.

And then there was a Brain Pickings bit covering a love letter Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman wrote to his wife after her death. It’s such an interesting intersection of how a scientist thinks of himself in that “capital S” science mode, but has a deep sense of connection that transcends that. It made me happy that he gave into the urge to write what is truly a wonderful love letter.

I also read four books in March. They were all romances, and two of them were library books. But now, according to my Goodreads home page, I’m 11 books ahead of pace to meet my 50-book goal of books read for the year. And I already increased that goal from 40 last month.

The interesting thing about library books–and especially ones you add to your wait list that surprise you by checking themselves into your in box–is that the deadline to return them and the artificial sense of NEW BOOK makes them quite dangerous to me. Because I must read them immediately. Regardless of whether it’s a week night.

So now that I’ve met my big push for writing, I’ll spend a few days cleaning up my draft for my editor. Then I’ll spend April doing book-related housekeeping: redoing the print versions of the first two Red Slaves books; catching up on my sales spreadsheets; reworking my ad campaigns. May will be dedicated to edits and release work. June I have an editing commitment and I’ll start writing book 2 in this new series.

I’m glad to have a rough sense of timeline and deadlines, though we’ll see how that meets up with whatever life dishes up for us.

While I’m working hard on finalizing my Team Alpha manuscript this month, my blog might have been echoingly empty, except that I met the fabulous Lorna Suzuki on Twitter a few months back. Last month, she ran an interview with me, so I jumped at the chance to return the favor.

Indie author, Lorna Suzuki

1. You’ve lived an interesting life, from an early career in law enforcement and heading up the education department for zoos and a conservation center to your decades of experience with martial arts. How do you see the range of those experiences playing out in your writing?

Many
writers follow the adage: Write what you know. In my case, some of my personal
experiences seeped onto the pages of my stories. Having lived with racism, I faced
sexism, male chauvinism, and harassment, as I grew older. Being only one of two
women in the field in our province back in 1979, my experience in law
enforcement with the Federal Dept. of Fisheries & Oceans was not unlike the
grief some female RCMP officers still face.

Suzuki books: Imago Chronicles, book eight and Dream Merchant saga, book one

In writing the Imago Chronicles series, the female protagonist is half human and half elf. Being the only one of her kind, she is shunned by one race and denied by the other. To make matters worse, she enters the male-dominated arena of warriorship, training as an elite assassin. So definitely, some of her experiences were inspired by what I’ve dealt with.

2. What influenced your choice to give up
the work with the zoo?

There was never a choice, but first, let me explain my involvement with zoos. Growing up in the 1960s, zoos were viewed by many as a form of entertainment. In my opinion, zoo animals were the ambassadors representing their species and habitat, both of which were, and still are, disappearing at an alarming rate. If these animals are entrusted to our care, it is not good enough to provide them with longer life. The focus should be on their quality of life and how to better their life in a safe, but artificial habitat. My job was to educate the public about the changing role of the modern zoos.

I prefer animals not to be held in captivity, but for many, there is no wild habitat left. So, is it better to let them become extinct because of our carelessness or indifference? I remember when many believed whales were nothing more than big fish. When credible aquariums showed patrons these animals were intelligent, they live in family groups, communicate and even express grief, society put pressure on the whaling industries and for aquariums to stop treating the whales as circus performers.

I frown on animals made to do tricks for our entertainment. If animals are encouraged to display natural behavior so we can better understand them, then that’s different.

Many want animals to be free, but wild places are fast disappearing. Others say, go to Africa and see animals in their natural environment. But what is natural about a pride of lions struggling to catch a meal while tourists in ATVs tear through their habitat, scaring off their prey animal, just to observe them? Life in the wild is difficult enough. Animals starve or die of fixable injuries all the time, but when people interfere to have this ‘natural experience’, it is always the animals that suffer. The zoo is now the modern ark, preserving/conserving endangered species and educating the public about the need to protect wild spaces so there are places for species’ reintroduction. Through the years, I found unless people feel a connection to these animals, they tend to care less about them or their plight.

As
for leaving the zoo, the entire management staff, myself included, had opinions
about how a modern facility should operate. These opinions did not align with
the new, foreign owners. We were all relieved of our duties.

On
February 6th, 2002, I had no job to go to. One door slammed shut, so
I pried open a window. On Feb. 7th, I began writing the first novel
in the Imago Chronicles series.

3. I know you use your martial arts
knowledge specifically in your books. Have you ever had authors ask you for a
technical review of their fight scenes?

No,
but I’ve had authors with no martial arts experience tell me they studied my
fight/battle scenes to learn how to write them. This changed after I listened
to a chat hosted by a writer. She said she hates it when a female character is
able to take on a much larger opponent and do so successfully. Other authors chimed
in, decrying how it’s “so phony” when a woman, especially a small one lacking
super powers, can do this.

I
had to speak up. I explained I’m less than 5 feet tall, but when I do demos, I
use the largest men to prove you do not need strength or size to take on a big opponent.
Of course, they didn’t believe it until I invited them to check out some of my
martial arts demos where I do just that. The chat room went quiet. When the
host returned after seeing my demo, she stated I was “an anomaly! It just
doesn’t happen in real life!” It was obvious those lacking fighting experience
needed some guidance as to what is truly possible. Since then, I’ve been
invited to a number of literary events to conduct writing about fighting
workshops and martial arts demos.

4. You’ve said before that you wrote your Imago series to make sure your daughter had a strong, female protagonist to look up to. Now that she’s an adult, has she commented on how reading your books has impacted her and her worldview?

My daughter, Nia, like the female protagonist in Imago, is biracial. Being half Japanese and half English, she, too, has had to deal with racism and continues to witness me dealing with it too, in our daily lives. She is pursuing a career in conservation, studying the same Wildlife program I studied at a local campus. I can’t say if it’s a coincidence she follows in my footsteps because my novels influenced her.

Like the female character in Imago, she observes the world around us, and like me, she notices human behavior. While Nia was in elementary school, we began writing the Dream Merchant Saga. Nia was appalled, seeing kids cursed with a sense of entitlement. For example, one student lost a new iPhone on the playground. Nia offered to help her find it, only to have this student say, “Don’t worry, my mom will buy me a new one.” Nia couldn’t believe this! Also, she was irked when kids showed off brand name sneakers, clothes, etc. particularly when they made other students who were not so privileged feel bad about having less. Her reaction to this helped create Princess Rose in the Dream Merchant Saga. Rose is beautiful, but uses/abuses those around her because of her sense of privilege. She learns the hard way that it’s easy to buy loyalty, but true friendship cannot be bought.

5. Several years ago, you optioned the film rights to the first three novels in the Imago series. Don Carmody was attached as the producer and you ended up with an IMDB page. What happened?

Yes, Don Carmody is an Oscar-winning Canadian producer, best known for “Good Will Hunting,” “Chorus Line,” and the “Resident Evil” franchise. His production company was signed on, the screenplay was written, etc. but like most properties optioned for film or TV, at the eleventh hour, a major investor pulled out because the economy had tanked.

Since then, the original executive producer tried to option the property again, but now, I am working with a producer in New York. We are looking to develop Imago Chronicles for a cable TV series. I believe this is a far better medium to share the series than to cram the novels into a film trilogy!

6. What lessons did you draw from that
experience and what tips would you share with other authors who face similar
paths and choices?

There
is so much involved in a film deal and one must never accept an option
agreement without fully understanding all the terms and conditions.

First
of all, if a producer wants to option your property, get legal representation!
If you do not have a literary agent, then find a good entertainment lawyer. In some
ways, a lawyer can be better because literary agents take a percentage of
EVERYTHING they negotiate (from book royalties to box office receipts and
profits from merchandising), while many entertainment lawyers will charge a set
rate for negotiating a deal.

Second,
do not option for longer than three years, and if you do, make sure the
executive producer meets targets or production milestones in order to receive an
extension. For example, by the first anniversary of the agreement have a
screenwriter hired and a script produced; second anniversary, have financing in
place, etc.

Some
big production companies will option a property merely to prevent a competitor
from securing it. By placing milestones before renewing, it can reveal if the
production company is serious about making a film or if they plan to just sit
on it.

Do not let an executive producer option your property for $1. I’ve had authors tell me this is what they’ve done because a producer told them it’s common practice in the industry. James Cameron of “Titanic” fame was the one who started this $1 option fee. He made this deal with the “Terminator” film, but it was to secure his role as the director.

I
don’t know many writers who are also directors, but unless you have a deal like
this, the only person to benefit from such a deal is the producer. You must
remember the primary goal of the executive producer is to secure a property for
the least amount of cost to them. That $1 is to make the option agreement
legally binding, if you accept.

Three,
it is better to walk away from a bad deal than to sell your property (and soul)
on a promise or a hope that having a book optioned will mean instant book
sales, fame, etc. because this is rarely the case.

My health is failing, so I doubt I’ll do any more writing other than personal messages for Nia. I don’t like the idea of starting something I can’t finish. As it stand now, the Imago Chronicles is my legacy to her and I’m just so grateful we collaborated on the Dream Merchant Saga.

8. You’ve completed three books in the Dream Merchant Saga. Will this series go on as long as the Imago series?

Late in 2018 Nia and I published our last two novels in the Dream Merchant Saga, Book 4: Sin and Book 5: World’s End. These books will most likely be our last together. Fifteen novels later, and I think maybe the world has had enough from me.

9. What do you see as the biggest benefits
of remaining Indie?

It’s great if you’re a musician or a filmmaker, but there is still a stigma attached to being an indie author. In my experience, both as an attendee and a panelist at various literary events, I’ve spoken to aspiring authors who have told me there’s a level of credibility when you are traditionally published, so that is the only way to go, ‘if you’re a serious writer’. Sadly, many of these authors have no idea how difficult it is to acquire a credible literary agent or to be pulled from the obscurity of a publisher’s mountainous slush pile. For me, even having a literary agent with a proven track record of sales to the big 5 publishers was no guarantee. In fact, I wrote my first novel with no intention of going the traditional publishing route. It was only when I self-published and was invited to do an interview and martial arts demo on MTV that a film producer happened to see me and one of my novels being used as a weapon. She brought the first three Imago novels, fell in love with them and searched me out to option my novels for the film trilogy.

As an indie author I am not pressured by deadlines other than the ones I impose. I can choose the retailers, decide on the retailers’ discount, as well as set my royalties for my eBooks and print books. Typically, this is not the case for traditionally published authors. BTW, I also know some traditionally published authors wanting to complete their publishing contracts with their big publisher to allow them the freedom to write as an indie author. So, it really comes down to the individual writer and their expectations.

10. What question did I not ask that you
would wish to have been asked?

The only question that comes to mind is what would ever compel a vertically challenged, puny female to ever want to enter law enforcement at a time when women were just entering this male-dominated arena or become a martial arts practitioner/instructor in a style predominantly practiced by men. To this day, people scratch their heads when they look at me and discover my background!

If you’re interested in keeping in touch with Lorna, she’s on Twitter @LornaSuzuki

It’s been a productive month; I think the choice to reduce my blog check-ins is paying off. Traffic has only dropped off slightly, while my ability to produce new fiction has increased dramatically. Since my last post, I’ve added 8,428 words to my WIP. If I average 600 words per day through the end of March, I will finish my latest novel and be able to ship it off to my editor with plenty of time to manage a May release for Team Alpha. I’m excited to share this opening to a space opera series with the world… even if there is increasing evidence from such hallowed sources as Courtney Milan and Nora Roberts that plagiarists, scammers, and scummy people (book stuffers) have joined the Amazon party and make it increasingly difficult for original fiction to find its audience.

I’m blessed that I have a day job that allows me the luxury of pursuing my creative vision without having to worry too much whether it will ever pay off in terms of sales that (in an ideal world) would offset the costs of bringing quality content to market. In other words, I can subsidize myself–a rare position in the writing world. This may not always be the case, so I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

In some ways, my efforts are also a nod at the generations of female researchers whose names were hidden in notes of thanks rather than being given the authorial credit they would have earned in current practice. The rather odd flip side to that outdated practice was an article that asked readers to carefully consider whether they should take a promotion. A strangely related piece about the harm to business productivity when companies force employees to give up their free time for one reason or another. The article argues strongly for the need to back off from the 72-hour workweek by focusing free time on creative pursuits.

In the realm of more scientific research, a pair of authors dug into the well-known doomsday population predictions from the UN (that by 2100 there will be 11 billion people on the planet, specifically), and found… that the basis for the prediction doesn’t hold water. Reading the article about their provocatively titled book Empty Planet leaned heavily on debunking “everybody knows” style thinking, and speculated that not only is the rate of urbanization but also the rate of female education are outstripping predictions–and both have a significant cooling effect on population growth. Aptly, then, the final article I’ll share this week from those I’ve read recently: An interview with David Dunning on the psychological effect that bears his name: The Dunning-Kruger effect. “Here are the classic findings from the original paper on the effect in graph form. The worst performers — those in the bottom and second quartile — grossly overestimated their ability (also note how the best performers underestimated it).”

In heading back to the writing trenches, I can leave you with the news that my beta readers approve of my direction to date, so I’ll tease you with the opening paragraphs of the story as it currently stands:

At least in space, the air doesn’t smell like despair. Her brother would thump her if he ever heard her say that out loud. Dr. Marina Spitzer grimaced as the g-forces accumulated and she tracked the gauges in front of her eyes.

“So far, we’re still in the green over here.” Three years into their mission and it was still strange to her to use the tongue switch to make the words print out in the chat screen for her team mates. Given the frequency of the slingshot maneuvers they were using to traverse deep space, though, the group couldn’t count on being able to use hand signals or even type on their keyboards.

But it was vital to make sure that the seedlings in her care made it to their destinations hale and hardy, else essential nutrition be missing for the entire team. And for the future of humanity.

Rina argued with her brother in absentia. She was definitely in space—even if she were in a spaceship on her way to the next in the string of planets that everyone left on Earth hoped would suit for starting over. And she imagined she could smell the greenery her dials and gauges were reporting on, as the oxygen they provided filtered throughout the ship.

She imagined him putting on his rebreather mask as he braved the pollution of nuclear winter on his daily trek between the home block bunker and the research institute in Stuttgart. She was out here for Karl as much as for humanity.

Until next time, remember to question your assumptions and live your life for yourself. The rest, as the great Alan Watts points out, is merely crazy-making noise.